{"id":22827,"date":"2025-10-10T12:04:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T12:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=22827"},"modified":"2025-10-10T12:04:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T12:04:03","slug":"sam-kerr-poised-to-return-for-australias-matildas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=22827","title":{"rendered":"Sam Kerr poised to return for Australia&#8217;s Matildas"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Sam Kerr is poised to return to international football following a lengthy injury layoff after she was named Friday in Australia&#8217;s squad to take on Wales and England.<\/p>\n<p>But there was no indication whether the Chelsea striker &#8212; who has not played for the Matildas in almost two years &#8212; would again be handed the captain&#8217;s armband.<\/p>\n<p>Matildas coach Joe Montemurro said the 32-year-old&#8217;s &#8220;leadership and presence&#8221; were invaluable to the side.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Having Sam back in the squad is a special moment &#8212; not just for the team, but for Australian football.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kerr returned to club football for Chelsea in September &#8212; her first match since picking up a serious knee injury in December 2023.<\/p>\n<p>She was found in February not guilty of racially aggravated abuse after calling a British police officer &#8220;stupid and white&#8221; following a drunken night out.<\/p>\n<p>The Matildas have typically been captained by Arsenal defender Steph Catley in Kerr&#8217;s absence.<\/p>\n<p>Manchester City midfielder Mary Fowler was not selected after rupturing a ligament in her knee this year.<\/p>\n<p>Australia play Wales in Cardiff on October 25 before facing England in Derby on October 28.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sam Kerr is poised to return to international football following a lengthy injury layoff after she was named Friday in Australia&#8217;s squad to take on Wales and England. But there was no indication whether the Chelsea striker &#8212; who has not played for the Matildas in almost two years &#8212; would again be handed the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}